On leroy’s land

2015

1934:

A thick chunk of hair settled into a curl of stress and hung just above one brow on Leroy’s face. He sat calm and collected—a product of his true nature—at the county station while the policeman voiced his options for moving forward.

Mr. Huey Jones knew what he had done. The two cows of his own that he placed on his neighbor’s land in an attempt to claim a property theft would leave Leroy begging Southern authority not to throw him in jail. Leroy had grown impatient, and was eager to state his case. But the police officer assured him that: “Yes, Mr. Guillory, you will get your chance to speak when I am through.”

But promises like those from people of his color are rarely kept. All the while, Mr. Jones held the sly smirk on his face because he was certain, as always, that the justice system worked just fine. After a few hours and a number of private conversations held by men who loved the law, they sided with the accuser and demanded that Leroy pay his time behind bars. But Mr. Jones proposed an exception. He suggested that if Leroy were to offer up a piece of his land, Mr. Jones would drop the charges and cease the accusations entirely. For the sake of his family, and to avoid any further trouble, Leroy accepted. With a hanged head and a bent spirit, Leroy walked out of the station a free man, but only at the expense of another piece of himself left in the hands of an unworthy soul.

1963:

The black, feathered end of Dylo’s hair framed the side of one bronze cheek while he let the Southern sun kiss the other. His hair was quite fine: a hint of curl, but coarse enough to prove his color. The mixed drops of blood—considered impure by ancient judgment—running through his insides gave no truth for outward theories cast upon him. But the caramel hue on his skin made the general public wary.

In the Great American South, there lived a collective force designed to make his little life uncomfortable. Life in the waking moment was like being involved in some sort of psychological warfare—a daunting situation for a boy of 10 years to bear, but his shoulders have held heavier burdens.

Dylo Jean Guillory was a boy of profound judgment and a sense of awareness well beyond his years. His Bayou-branded father was to thank for his rose-colored cheeks and deep-set eyes. His mother deserved the praise for the seamless blend of God-like hues on his skin. Together his parents had propagated a powerful brew: a genetic cocktail that carried the history of past generations, and their ancestors who begged for better days.

The Black Creoles of Southern Louisiana in the ‘60s were many things. Both tough and soft, they wore their hybrid genes well. Strings of different hues across the color spectrum hung on the outward flesh of members of immediate families—each of them wearing a unique variation of their own. They were brave and fearless. They were the children of a borrowed land.

***

During the week, when dusk prepared to meet the end of the day, Abraham Guillory would call his seven children away from the 10 acres of land that had belonged to his father, Leroy. On one steady October night, Corrine Guillory had finished stirring in the pot of gumbo that rested atop a hot, gas stove. Autumn had begun to settle in and the weather was just beginning to change. There was a light breeze that was let in through the window above the kitchen sink.

Conversation at dinnertime was easy and natural. The words that were exchanged suggested tight bonds of steel that no power from any external force could destroy.

Stories flowed across the table like little streams that fed into the mouths of big, open curious rivers. Thoughts, partly unfinished, rolled off of retired breaths and gestures, pouring naturally into the mouth of the next speaker. Dylo announced that on this day he had made a friend. A little peach-skinned boy with yellow hair. He explained that the boy had eyes that were blue like the marbles in his duffel sack. He said it was like the boy stole one and placed them gently in the socket of his eye. His friend’s name was Jimmy.

On Sunday mornings, Abraham Guillory would call Dylo and his siblings into the pasture to begin the outside chores for the day. One morning Abraham decided it was time to build a fence to keep the growing cattle on one side of the land. While his older brothers chopped the pieces, Dylo and his younger sister moved the wood into piles next to the working site.

Abraham, with his back toward the sun and his children behind him, used the recycled strength of a man in his mid-40s as he pounded away: hammer to nail, hammer to nail. He had been working all of his life and the energy exerted on a task like this just 20 years ago was, of course, much stronger. But in raising a family under the circumstances at hand, men naturally learn how to save these efforts and disperse them accordingly over the years, for as long as they can.

At once, Abraham heard silence. The chopping had stopped. He no longer heard the heavy clinging from the wood pieces hitting each other as they fell into the pile. He turned around toward the sun and caught the sight of a shotgun barrel resting about 2 inches from his face. He looked at the other end of the gun and saw a dirty, peach-skinned hand that looked like it had known the inside of a chicken coop very well. It was Jimmy Lee Carrier—a neighbor who dwelled across the street, and who usually made it his God-given occupation to give Abraham hell. Jimmy Lee gently told Abraham that if he continued to build this fence he would shoot his two nigger eyes clean out of their sockets. Jimmy Lee then explained that the fence was two feet over into his land.

A little blonde-haired boy came running from the other side of the hill. Calling out for his father, he pleaded for him to put the gun down. Dylo immediately recognized the blueness of his eyes. They shined bright against the reflection of the sun.

Dylo wanted to call out to him but he was too frozen with fear. Jimmy Jr. pointed to Dylo and explained that was his friend.

Jimmy Lee turned around. A heavy guilt and tracings of remorse ran across his face as if he’d been sucked into some sort of empathetic vortex. He looked in his son’s eyes and fell victim to a rush of innocence and hope that made him drop the gun and look back at the family—this time as if they were humans and not the brown-skinned trouble-makers he claimed they were.

Abraham stood up. He noticed the look of regret and sorrow on Jimmy Lee’s face. They both looked at their children: these tiny beings of light and all things true; these precious little people who didn’t yet know about the social and political complexities of race and color, or the generational conditions from which their two separate destinies had already been written.

Abraham extended his right arm in Jimmy Lee’s direction. With the gun on the ground, they shook hands on Leroy’s land.